The Big News:
Last year, Black Mesa was one of the first Steam games to be Greenlit by you,
our amazing fans. We've had quite a year since then, with a lot happening
internally that we haven't been able to talk about... until now. Black Mesa has
been given the opportunity to be sold as a retail product on Steam! This is an
incredible honor - one we never expected - but also one we found hard to accept.

We never developed Black Mesa with money in mind. Our team is made up of
average, hardworking people, and no one joined the team to make money. For us,
Black Mesa is purely a labor of love. We believe this philosophy has
significantly contributed to the overall quality and feel of the game.

Our decision to sell Black Mesa rests on two key points. One is we believe we
can make the game even better by having full access to the Source engine. This
lets us tackle and fix limitations instead of working around them. The second is
because frankly, our team could really use the financial help.

The Plan:
Soon you'll see Black Mesa available on Steam for a relatively low price. But we
aren't dropping all support for the free version. In fact shortly after the
Steam release there will be a completely new free version of the game. We also
plan to open source our maps and some game assets to the modding community!

Purchasing the Steam version of Black Mesa is more about supporting the team and
our efforts than anything else. However, the Steam version will include features
that the free version simply can not have. We will be paying careful attention
to feedback, and you'll have a very real say in how the final game turns out.

Long-Term Plans and Xen:
We've been overwhelmed by fan anticipation for Xen, and we're excited so many
people are eager to conclude the game. To be totally honest however, Xen is
still a ways off. Over the past year, we have spent a HUGE amount of time
porting the game to a new engine and fixing hundreds of bugs. The work to port
to the new engine was not because of the decision to go retail, this was work
that had to be done to get Black Mesa onto Steam and support our future plans.

So, please be patient with us as we work to make Xen a stunning and worthy
conclusion to Black Mesa. Until Xen is completed, we have multiple interesting
additions planned for the Steam version of Black Mesa, which we will announce
later on down the road.

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Beamer wrote on Nov 21, 2013, 10:52:Well, ignoring that everything outside the original Portal is well over 5 hours of gameplay...

Yeah, like what? As I already explained I meant singleplayer, because you can't really measure multiplayer. Was Portal 2 much longer? Of course this isn't only Valve's fault because everyone nowadays thinks that singleplayer games beyond 5 hours are too long, maybe besides Bethesda. Just look at the campaigns of Battlefield 4 or Cod Ghosts!

...and ignoring that Nabarcular Drop and Portal have very little in common...

...besides the idea itself which is all the Portal games is about. While...

...The Cake is a Lie, Still Alive, and GladOS...

...are just icing on the cake, without portals there wouldn't have been any of this! I agree with you that Valve is wonderfull in fleshing out existing mods, just look at the TF2 makeover, but what I want is them to quit messing around with one MP mod after the other to finish the HL series! This is what build their fame in the first place and I fear the longer they wait, the higher the chance that HL2:EP3 will be a sad failure when it comes out and people moved on.

Valve is by far the largest PC-centric independent developer...

Sadly, in my opinion they don't concentrate on developing games anymore, rather on becoming the biggest PC-centric publisher everywhere and in the living room, with Steam, SteamWorks, GreenLight, FirstAcess and the SteamBoxes!